UK bike brand Charge Bikes has revealed that they are working with the European Aeronautic Defence and Space centre (EADS) in Bristol, UK developing a very limited run of 50 bikes with unique 3D printed titanium dropouts.

Traditional methods such as forging and CNC has limitations and drawbacks. It is difficult to produce complex shapes and CNC has very high waste rate while forging has very high tooling costs.

Using Direct Metal Laser Sintering (DMLS) technology the design is sliced into fine layers and melted in a bed of powder to form a solid form. This approach means that complex parts can be made as a single piece easily.

To produce titanium dropouts, EADS uses a DMLS machine to melt and print powdered titanium into super detailed dropout. Each layer is 0.03mm thick and it takes about 40 hours to produce a batch of 50 dropouts.

This is not a quick process, but it is still the best method to make titanium parts. Specialist ALM Engineer Andy Hawkins at EADS says,

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Titanium is expensive, so anything that reduces wastage is a bonus. It's also poor at conducting heat, which means that the laser is able to very effectively and accurately melt the layers. Aluminium, which melts at a much lower temperature, requires twice the laser power because it's such an efficient conductor. Titanium, especially as a 6Al/4V alloy (6% aluminium and 4% vanadium) is extremely hard, and that makes it costly and time-consuming to machine.

The additive layer process is so well suited to making small and complex titanium parts that it's already cost effective for some applications. "We recently ran a batch of parts for an aerospace project," Andy says. "By nesting them together on the plate we managed to produce 50 at once, all slightly different. In the end we couldn't have produced them as cheaply or as quickly any other way."

Once the parts are finished they will be shipped to Taipei where they'll be welded into a cyclocross frame.

This technology is still very much in its infancy, this means it is expensive. There is no exactly figure how much it costs to produce the dropouts, but according to the company, the 50 limited edition Freezer models costs at least £400 more than the conventional design.

Charge bike is the first company in the industry producing parts using 3D printing technology. According road.cc, Cannondale have also one DMLS machine in the office for knocking out sample designs that you can hold in your hand.

New technology opens up so much potential and this process will certainly revolutionise how bikes are made. The cost of 3D printer has come down in the last years, and when 3D printer becomes cheaper and faster it will be possible to print the entire metal frame in one piece. Every bike can be uniquely customized for individuals, with your own measurement, favorite colors and prints.

Raceware Direct just sent us these photos of a prototype 3D printed titanium stem that one of their reps, Martyn Harris, says he’ll be racing on his bike at the Track World Masters in Manchester next month. This isn’t the first printed titanium part for bikes, Charge Bikes recently showed off their very limited edition 3D printed ti dropouts, but Harris says this is the first printed ti stem he’s aware of. We’re gather more details on it and will update the post as we get them.

We DMLS stuff for a lot of our instruments all the time. I'm not an engineer but I remember my engineering buddy who headed up the project said that our parts had to be printed 25% larger as everything shrinks when melted together.

Our DMLS instruments have a noticeable different surface texture than their machined / welded counterparts but I just attribute that to instrument processing. Either way - cool stuff.

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Quote from: JPR@lastcall;3184017

It would have been great to have parents, but it made BMX so much more hardcore and real not being able to buy anything new, ever.

There is an advantage when it comes to "Impossible" parts, which would refer to designs within a part such as the honeycomb you see in the top pictures. The problem becomes like what G had said, the properties of forging to printing are totally different. Yes, you can make some pretty strong stuff from the 3D titanium printer. It holds up for cyclocross but I don't think it'll hold up to BMX or industrial use. Not yet anyways since the technology is still very very new. Super cool and awesome but new.

*I'll go halvsies on a Ti printer with you G* we can rule the BMX world with a titanium fist!

No. But you also cant do it with the selective laser melting machine in the top video either, unless you leave a side open to drain all the excess powder out (or leave it in there with kind of negates the point).

In the video of the dropouts he specifically claims that they couldnt have made those dropouts any other way and yet that is rubbish. You could investment cast them for a relatively low tool cost.Sunday dropouts have been hollow for what 6 years, and are forged for ultimate strength without needing this kind of process though there is obviously a lot more conventional work that goes into them than this.

3D printing is undoubtedly very cool and may well be a huge industry in the future, but people hyping up the (what I think will eventually be seen as) primitive stuff we have at the moment is not very helpful.

When we can lay down individual carbon atoms in perfect alignment to make pretty much anything with genuinely amazing and almost perfectly efficient strength and weight then that will be incredible. An entire bike could weigh probably just a few pounds (like 3 or 4) yet be stronger than what we have now.